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One of Gabon's biggest trials for corruption got underway on Thursday, in a case featuring senior civil servants and former ministers. The trial is taking place in a recently-created judicial unit, the Special Criminal Court, in the capital Libreville. The high-profile case follows from an anti-graft campaign called Operation Mamba, launched in early 2017. The first defendant to appear on Thursday was Blaise Wada, a senior civil servant in charge with managing international funds for an project to clean up the city's watershed. He is accused of siphoning off 1.765 billion CFA francs (about $3.3 million, 2.7 million euros). Others scheduled to appear in the coming weeks include former economy minister Magloire Ngambia and former oil minister Etienne Dieudonne Ngoubou...

Nine police officers appeared in a South African court Thursday over the deaths of three miners in the days before the 2012 Marikana massacre, when 34 striking workers were shot dead. They are the first officers to be in court over the traumatic events of nearly six years ago, when police broke up a wildcat strike that had turned violent at the Marikana platinum mine northwest of Johannesburg. The officers, who were granted bail by the court in Rustenburg, face charges of murder, attempted murder and subverting the course of justice. The charges arise from killings on August 13 2012, three days before police opened fire on a group of workers shooting the 34 miners. In documents read out in...

The death toll in a Senegalese military helicopter crash rose to eight on Thursday after two more people succumbed to their injuries, the army said. The helicopter was carrying 20 people, including four crew, when it plummeted into a mangrove forest in the southern coastal area of Missirah on Wednesday night. What caused the crash is unclear. Army spokesman Abdou Ndiaye told AFP the death toll had risen from six to eight overnight while three of the 12 injured remained in a serious condition. The director of the Kaolack hospital in central Senegal told the public APS press agency that some of the injured had been transferred to the capital, Dakar, for treatment. Authorities have launched an enquiry to determine...

Libya has issued arrest warrants for more than 200 Libyans and foreigners suspected of involvement in a smuggling network for Europe-bound migrants, the attorney general's office said on Thursday. "We have 205 arrest warrants for people (involved in) organising immigration operations, human trafficking, (cases) of torture, murder and rape," said Seddik al-Sour, the director of the attorney general's investigations office. The trafficking ring is alleged to include members of security services, leaders of migrant detention camps, and embassy officials from African countries based in Libya, Sour said. Libya has descended into chaos since the fall of Moamer Kadhafi's regime in 2011, and has become a hub for hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants trying to reach Europe by sea...

The Benin government on Wednesday suspended the country's official pharmacy body for six months and banned a key drugs supplier in a bid to clear up the pharmaceutical sector and crack down on fake drugs. The decision follows a court ruling that jailed pharmaceutical executives on Tuesday on charges of selling illicit medicine in the West African country. "The council of ministers has decided to suspend for a period of six months the Benin National Pharmacists' Association, the time needed to make necessary reforms in the sector," Minister of Justice Joseph Djogbenou told reporters. "The Association was unable to fulfil its duties and the State decided to take over its responsibilities. There is evidence of complacency," he added, but said...

Protesters and police clashed on Wednesday in the former mining town of Jerada in northeastern Morocco in connection to an ongoing protest movement, authorities and activists said. Videos posted on social media by activists showed a tense standoff as a new sit-in began in the city, economically devastated by the closure of its mines in the late 1990s. A local source reported clashes between police and protesters, and activists on Facebook accused police of assaulting the demonstrators. Authorities said a "confrontation" began after hooded youths threw stones at police. Local media reported injuries after the clashes, but authorities have not yet released any figures.

At least two soldiers were killed Wednesday in renewed violence between herders and farmers in central Nigeria's Plateau state days after similar violence killed 25 in unrest linked to land, water and grazing rights. Troops were deployed to contain the fresh clashes between Fulani herders and farmers from Irigwe ethnic group in Bassa district, a military spokesman told reporters, as bloodshed continued in the region despite a round-the-clock curfew imposed to stem the fighting. "We lost two of our men, two others were injured and are receiving treatment in hospital," said Major Umar Adamu. Many people from the two warring sides were "feared killed" in the violence, which left scores of homes burnt, he said. The violence was believed to...

Six people were killed and 14 others injured when a Senegalese military helicopter crashed late Wednesday, according to a government statement giving an updated toll from the incident in the south of the country. The helicopter, which went down in a mangrove forest in the coastal area of Missirah, was carrying 20 people, including four crew, army spokesman Colonel Abdou Ndiaye told AFP earlier. According to a statement released by the government, rescue workers said six people died at the scene. "The other 14 passengers were wounded, three seriously," it said, adding that the injured were being transferred to a regional hospital in Kaolack.

MAPUTO (Reuters) - Pests and disease sweeping through Mozambique have destroyed at least a third of the country’s agricultural crops over the past 11 months, a government spokeswoman said. Ana Comoana, the spokeswoman, said more than 41,000 hectares of crops in Mozambique, a tropical African nation with a huge Indian Ocean coastline, had been affected by pests including caterpillars and fruit flies. She said that more than 3,000 hectares of maize had been lost, and that coconut and banana production had also suffered. Mozambique’s cabinet approved on Tuesday a 160 million metical ($2.6 million) action plan to combat pests and disease. The country is one of the world’s poorest countries and is in the throes of a debt and financial...

KAMPALA (Reuters) - A Ugandan male lawmaker has provoked outrage among rights activists by exhorting men to beat their wives in order to discipline them, in comments carried by a Ugandan TV channel. Onesmus Twinamasiko’s remarks followed a speech by President Yoweri Museveni on Women’s Day on March 8 in which he condemned assaults on women by husbands and called it cowardly. “As a man, you need to discipline your wife,” the lawmaker told local NTV Uganda in an interview on March 10. “You need to, you know, touch her a bit and you tackle her and you beat her somehow, you know, to really streamline her.” The majority Christian East African country is conservative and, as in many countries...

Nigeria's president, in a visit to the country's troubled northeast, on Monday predicted success in what he described as relentless efforts to release more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. The jihadists are still holding 112 of the 219 students they abducted from the Borno state town of Chibok in April 2014, and also 110 pupils taken from Dapchi, in Yobe state, in February. On a visit to the Yobe state capital, Damaturu, President Muhammadu Buhari said he had "no doubt" the Dapchi girls would be rescued or released. "I can reassure parents, Nigerians and the international community that we will do all that is within our power to make sure that the girls are brought back safely to...

South African police were on Wednesday probing one of their own officers who was accused of molesting young girls while investigating sexual assault of scores of primary school pupils. The forensic investigator allegedly molested two girls aged seven and eight on Monday when he visited their school to prepare pupils for a court appearance. The girls are among up to 87 girls allegedly sexually abused by a security guard at a school in Johannesburg's Soweto township last year. The guard is facing rape and sexual assault charges. Police provincial commissioner Deliwe de Lange said the allegations against the officer were "receiving the necessary attention as a matter of priority". Provincial education minister Panyaza Lesufi expressed dismay at the latest "shocking...

Zimbabwe's main state hospitals turned away many patients and only attended to emergency cases on Wednesday as a strike by doctors escalated. The strike, which seek to pressure the government for salary increases and address drugs shortages in hospitals, has spread since starting two weeks ago among junior doctors. "We will only return to work when all issues raised have been fully resolved," the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) said in a statement. "We note with concern the closure of almost all central hospitals, children's units, provincial hospitals and cessation of emergency life-saving procedures throughout the country."

Guinea's powerful teachers' union called off a month-long strike on Wednesday after reaching an agreement with the government on pay. The strikes have paralysed the country's education system and fractured relations between teachers, parents and the state, while President Alpha Conde has faced criticism for allowing the industrial action to drag on. They have run in parallel to protests by the opposition Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), one of whose supporters was killed during a demonstration on Wednesday, his family told AFP. Aboubacar Soumah, the secretary general of the SLECG teachers' union, declared the strike over after signing an agreement with the Inspector General for Work, Alya Camara.

More than 16,000 African migrants have been repatriated from camps in Libya under an emergency plan, the EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Tuesday. European and African leaders announced a plan for accelerated "voluntary" deportations in December after horrifying TV footage emerged of a slave market in Libya, where smugglers and criminal networks act with impunity. Libyan detention camps for migrants were already notorious after reports of rape, torture and beatings at facilities under the control of the UN-backed government of Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. "In the first two months of this year, January and February, we managed to rescue and free more than 16,000 people from the camps in Libya," Mogherini told the European Parliament in Strasbourg...

Nearly 5,000 people have fled to Kenya from the Ethiopian border town of Moyale after the weekend shooting of nine civilians by troops, the Kenyan Red Cross said Tuesday. Ethiopian state media said soldiers on Saturday shot nine civilians near the town after mistaking them for members of the banned Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) who were trying to sneak into the country. "Approximately 5,000 refugees have arrived in Moyale, the majority being women and children," a Red Cross statement said. "These include pregnant and lactating mothers, chronically ill persons, those abled differently and the elderly." A Moyale resident said Ethiopian soldiers were trying to seek out Oromo activists.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - About 5,000 Ethiopians have crossed into Kenya seeking refuge since March 10, the Kenyan Red Cross Society said, after several civilians were killed in what the Ethiopian military said was a botched security operation targeting militants. Ethiopian state media reported on Sunday that soldiers had been deployed to an area near the town of Moyale in Oromiya, a region that borders Kenya, in pursuit of Oromo Liberation Front fighters who had crossed into the country from Kenya. But faulty intelligence led soldiers to launch an attack that killed nine civilians and injured 12 others, the Ethiopian News Agency said. In a statement on Tuesday, the Kenyan Red Cross Society said “the population of refugees from Ethiopia...

Namibia on Tuesday reported its first case of listeriosis since an outbreak in neighbouring South Africa erupted at the beginning of last year, killing 183 people so far. A 41-year-old Namibian man was diagnosed with the disease on Monday and is being treated in a hospital in the capital Windhoek, Health Minister Bernard Haufiku said in a statement. Namibia has banned South African imports of processed meat products, and Haufiku warned Namibians not to eat any items still for sale in the country. "This is the first case of listeriosis reported in Namibia since the outbreak in neighbouring South Africa," Haufiku said. "Our surveillance and monitoring systems are in full force."

At least 25 people have died in intercommunal violence in central Mali over the past week, a local community leader said Tuesday, as ethnic groups clashed over land in a zone where the state is near-absent and jihadists roam freely. Nomadic Fulani people and farmers from the Dogon ethnic group have engaged in tit-for-tat violence sparked by Fulanis grazing their cattle on Dogon land. Dogons also accuse Fulanis in the area of colluding with cleric Amadou Koufa, whose Islamist group recently joined the Group to Support Islam and Muslims, a jihadist alliance with links to al-Qaeda.

Herders are believed to have killed 25 villagers in central Nigeria's Plateau state, police said on Wednesday, in the latest violence linked to land, water and grazing rights. The killings happened on Monday in the Bassa area of Plateau state, just a few days after at least five people were killed in the area. "The people were returning to Zirechi (village) from Dundun when they were attacked by gunmen believed to be Fulani herdsmen," state police commissioner Undie Adie told AFP. "I can confirm that 25 villagers were killed while two were injured. A number of houses were also burnt down by the attackers," he said. No arrests have yet been made, he said, adding: "The terrain is mountainous. The...